PART XXI

ARTICLE

http://www.rediff.com/news/report/ls-election-it-took-ec-4-years-to-admit-that-evms-could-be-hacked/20140314.htm ‘It took EC 4 years to admit that EVMs could be hacked’

Part XXI Temporary, transitional and special provisions.
377. Provisons as to Comptroller and Auditor-General of India.-The Auditor-General of
India holding office immediately before the commencement of this Constitution shall,
unless he has elected otherwise, become on such commencement the Comptroller and
Auditor-General of India and shall thereupon be entitled to such salaries and to such
rights in respect of leave of absence and pension as are provided for under clause (3) of
article 148 in respect of the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India and be entitled to
continue to hold office until the expiration of his term of office as determined under the
provisions which were applicable to him immediately before such commencement.

Why Ms Mayawati and BSP are dangerous for Murderers of democratic institutions(Modi)

The
SC/STs are seething at the doings of Bahuth Jiyadha Psychopaths MPs.
The Adivasis are being trampled on by this Murderers of democratic
institutions (Modi).fraud Hindutva demagogues, who wage war on our own people and are all talk and no action. But thethe
country has all ready mounted the forums. The intellectuals, research
scholars and all cadres of Sarvajans of all societies all over the world
started recording positive and non-violence thoughts in Insight-net,
websites, blogs, face book, bulk emails, tweets including http://sarvajan.ambedkar.org for Sarvajan Hithaye Sarvajan Sukhaya i.e., for welfare,happiness and peace of all societies.Bill Introduced in Rajya Sabha on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (
Prevention of Caste –based Discrimination in the Educational
Institutions ) Bill, 2016

New
Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to
introduce in a phased manner the paper trail in Electronic Voting
Machines (EVMs) for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, saying “it is an
indispensable requirement of free, fair and transparent” polls which
will restore confidence of the voters.

The
Supreme Court, which directed the Centre to provide financial
assistance to the poll panel for introduction Vote Verifier Paper Audit
Trail (VVPAT) system with the EVMs, said it will “ensure the accuracy of
the voting system” and also help in “manual counting of votes in case
of dispute.”

“The
‘paper trail’ is an indispensable requirement of free and fair
elections. The confidence of voters in the EVMs can be achieved only
with introduction of the paper trail,” it said.

“EVMs
with VVPAT system ensure the accuracy of the voting system. With an
intent to have fullest transparency in the system and to restore the
confidence of the voters, it is necessary to set up EVMs with VVPAT
system because vote is nothing but an act of expression which has
immense importance in democratic system,” the bench said.

“VVPAT
is a system of printing paper trail when the voter casts his vote, in
addition to the electronic record of the ballot, for the purpose of
verification of his choice of candidate and also for manual counting of
votes in case of dispute,” a bench comprising Chief Justice P Sathasivam
and Ranjan Gogoi said.

The
bench asked the Election Commission to introduce VVPAT in EVMs in
gradual stages or geographical-wise in the 2014 general elections.

While
asking the Centre to provide financial assistance, the bench noted the
submissions made by the Election Commission in its affidavit that it has
decided to increase the use of VVPAT units in a phased manner and has
already written to the Ministry of Law and Justice to issue
administrative and financial sanction for procurement of 20,000 units of
VVPAT (10,000 each from M/s BEL and M/s ECIL) costing Rs. 38.01 crore.

The
bench said, “Taking notice of the pragmatic and reasonable approach of
the Election Commission and considering the fact that in general
elections all over India, the Election Commission has to handle one
million (ten lakh) polling booths, we permit EC to introduce the same in
gradual stages or geographical-wise in the ensuing general elections.”

“The
area, state or actual booth(s) are to be decided by the EC and the EC
is free to implement the same in a phased manner,” it said.

The bench passed the order on two similar petitions; one of those petitions was filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.

Claiming
that EVMs were open to hacking, Mr Swamy had sought directions to the
poll watchdog to introduce paper trail to easily and cheaply meet the
requirements of proof that the EVM has rightly registered the vote cast
by a voter.

Mr
Swamy had moved the Supreme Court against January 2012 order of the
Delhi High Court disallowing his prayer to direct Election Commission to
incorporate the system of paper trail in EVMs.

The
bench noted that though initially the poll panel was little reluctant
in introducing paper trail by use of VVPAT, pursuant to its directions,
the Election Commission contacted several expert bodies and technical
advisers and held meetings with national and state level political
parties and carried out demonstrations.

It
noted that after a thorough examination, VVPAT was successfully used in
21 polling stations of 51-Noksen (ST) Assembly Constituency of
Nagaland.

“The
information furnished by the ECI, through the affidavit dated October
1, 2013 clearly shows that VVPAT system is a successful one,” the bench
said.

Computer
scientists have demonstrated how criminals could hack an electronic
voting machine (EVM) and ’steal’ votes using a malicious programming
approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was
designed.The team of scientists from the Universites of California,
San Diego, Michigan and Princeton employed “return-oriented programming”
to force an electronic voting machine to turn against itself.

“Voting
machines must remain secure throughout their entire service lifetime,
and this study demonstrates how a relatively new programming technique
can be used to take control of a voting machine that was designed to
resist takeover, but that did not anticipate this new kind of malicious
programming,” said Hovav Shacham.

Shacham
is professor of computer science at UC San Diego’s (UC-SD )Jacobs
School of Engineering and study co-author. His study demonstrates that
return-oriented programming can be used to execute vote-stealing
computations by taking control of an EVM designed to prevent code
injection.

The
computer scientists had no access to the machine’s source code - or any
other proprietary information - when designing the demonstration
attack.

By
using just the information that would be available to anyone who bought
or stole a voting machine, the researchers addressed a common criticism
made against voting security researchers: that they enjoy unrealistic
access to the systems they study.

“Based
on our understanding of security and computer technology, it looks like
paper-based elections are the way to go. Probably the best approach
would involve fast optical scanners reading paper ballots. These kinds
of paper-based systems are amenable to statistical audits, which is
something the election security research community is shifting to,” said
Shacham.

“You can actually run a modern and efficient election on paper,” he said.

ECI
has to answer for the holes in the bucket identified in the book edited
by Subramanian Swamy and Kalyanaraman, Electronic Voting Machines —
Unconstitutional and Tamperable (2010)http://www.flipkart.com/electronic-voting-machines-subraman…A private co. had a project to EVMs. Are look-alike EVMs available in the market?Why
are EVMs being manufactured abroad (with control units burnt-in with
programs in foreign countries using Indian agents)? How can BEL/ECIL
claim IP rights for such foreign-makes? How much money has been spent
for this foreign outsourcing?

ECI
should scrap EVMs which are unconstitutional in any case and revert to
paper ballots.Save democracy which has flourished in India for over 1000
years since Uttaramerur Inscription of Parakesari Varman of Parantaka
Chola days. This was mentioned in Constituent Assembly debates by the
late T. Prakasham, CM of composite Madras Presidency.

Sanjay Sharma, TNN, Feb 22, 2010, 03.44am ISTCHANDIGARH:
The electronic voting machines (EVMs) are being used in violation of
the Information Technology Act 2000, a research paper has revealed.

Author
of the research paper, advocate Ajay Jagga, told The Times of India, on
Sunday that as per IT Act, 2000, a verifiable audit trail has to be
provided in case of any electronic record, which is now admissible as
evidence as per Evidence Act but in case of electronic voting, the voter
does not get any receipt with regard to his voting.

The
research paper recently attracted the attention of experts when a
conference on “EVMs: How trustworthy?” in Chennai passed a unanimous
resolution on February 13 asking Jagga to approach the Election
Commission of India (ECI) for bringing the electronic voting procedure
in tune with IT Act, 2000.

Jagga
said he would soon approach ECI seeking formation of legal committee to
remove the illegality or will knock the doors of court.

The
lawyer said, “Unless the voter gets a receipt like the one we get in
ATM or after the use of debit or credit cards, all electronic
transactions including a vote, are illegal.” What is the evidence that
the vote cast has really been recorded and that it has been recorded in
the manner the voter intended, he asked.

For
the purpose and to protect the secrecy of ballot, all such receipts,
after the voter has checked his transaction, should be put in a box
which should remain with ECI to be produced as evidence in case of a
dispute, he said. The government amended the relevant laws in 1989 to
equate EVM with ballot and ballot box to facilitate transition from
ballot paper to EVM but the IT Act 2000 created a new complication that
has to be immediately resolved in the interest of fairness of things,
Jagga pointed out.

The
lawyer also proved that the machine can be tampered with which has been
accepted by the government itself in its letter to withdraw patent
applications filed by Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat
Electronics Ltd, makers of the machine. The PSUs withdrew their patent
applications on the ground that the machine may not be tamper-proof, he
said, adding that America and Germany had to return to ballot paper
after their machines were found wanting.

The
Election Commission of India has made an amazing confession: that the
security and integrity of the entire election system will be compromised
if the EVM software and the hardware design becomes known.

This
is what technologists, activists and political leaders have been saying
for many months now and the Commission had steadfastly refuted such
claims with a bizarre “our EVMs are fully tamper proof” claim.

The
above revelation was made by the Election Commission in a letter dated
March 30, 2010 to V.V. Rao, petitioner in the Supreme Court on the EVMs.
I quote below:

”…The
Commission is concerned that commercial interests could use the route
of reverse engineering (a process by which the original software and
hardware configuration can be accessed) which may compromise the
security and sanctity of the entire election system.”

“…It
is once again made clear that any demonstration of alleged
tamperability cannot include reverse-engineering as it compromises
security and sanctity of the entire […]

Telugu
Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu doubts that electronic
voting machines (EVMs) are non-tamperable, and has sought a national
debate to “clear all the doubts in the minds of voters.”

“I am convinced that there is scope for tampering with the EVMs,” he said here on Monday after launching a website,www.indianevm.com, hosted by election analyst G.V.L. Narasimha Rao and information technologist Hariprasad.

Though
he would not blame the Election Commission, with the existing EVMs
people were not sure whether the votes they cast went to the candidates
of their choice, Mr. Naidu said. When Germany, Singapore and some
European countries had gone back to the paper ballot, as the EVMs could
be tampered with and hacked, why should India alone use such machines?
“The EC should not stand on false prestige and gracefully go in for a
debate as the issue involved the fundamental rights of the citizens.”

Mr.
Naidu said he would take up the issue with other parties. There would
be nothing wrong in the country going back to the old system of ballot
votes if the machines were not safe and susceptible to tampering.

The
former Chief Secretary of Delhi and IIT alumnus, Omesh Saigal, asked
why the chip used in EVMs was allowed to be written in the United
States. “A Trojan horse is sitting inside the machine.”

During
August last, the EC said it gave opportunities to political parties and
individuals who claimed that EVMs could be manipulated to prove their
case. But “they either failed or chose not to demonstrate,” it said.

“The
EC would like to underline that it always had a firm conviction and
complete satisfaction that EVMs could not be tampered with. Its faith in
the machine has never wavered through the conduct of elections in the
last many years.”

None
was able to actually demonstrate that the EVMs used by the Commission
could be tampered with. “What has been demonstrated or claimed to have
been demonstrated is on a privately assembled lookalike of ECI-EVMs and
not the actual EVM, produced by the Electronics Corporation of India
Limited,” the Commission said.http://indiaevm.org/paper.html

Despite
elaborate safeguards, India’s EVMs are vulnerable to serious attacks.
Dishonest insiders or other criminals with physical access to the
machines at any time before ballots are counted can insert malicious
hardware that can steal votes for the lifetime of the machines.
Attackers with physical access between voting and counting can
arbitrarily change vote totals and can learn which candidate each voter
selected. These problems are deep-rooted. The design of India’s EVMs
relies entirely on the physical security of the machines and the
integrity of election insiders. This seems to negate many of the
security benefits of using electronic voting in the first place. The
technology’s promise was that attacks on the ballot box and dishonesty
in the counting process would be more difficult. Yet we find that such
attacks remain possible, while being more difficult to detect.

It
is highly doubtful that these problems could be remedied by simple
upgrades to the existing EVMs or election procedures. Merely making the
attacks we have demonstrated more difficult will not fix the fundamental
problem: India’s EVMs do not provide transparency, so voters and
election officials have no reason for confidence that the machines are
behaving honestly.

India
should carefully reconsider how to achieve a secure and transparent
voting system that is suitable to its national values and requirements.
One option that has been adopted in other countries is to use a
voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), which combines an electronic
record stored in a DRE with a paper vote record that can be audited by
hand [43]. Existing EVMs do not have updatable software, but it would be
possible to add a VVPAT by interposing on the cable between the control
unit and the ballot unit. Anotheroption is precinct-count optical
scan (PCOS) voting, where voters fill out paper ballots that are scanned
by a voting machine at the polling station before being placed in a
ballot box. Attacking either of these systems would require tampering
with both the paper records and the electronic records, provided that
routine audits are performed to make sure these redundant sets of
records agree [14]. A third option is to return to simple paper ballots.
Despite all of their known weaknesses, simple paper ballots provide a
high degree of transparency, so fraud that does occur will be more
likely to be detected.

Using
EVMs in India may have seemed like a good idea when the machines were
introduced in the 1980s, but science’s understanding of electronic
voting security—and of attacks against it—has progressed dramatically
since then, and other technologically advanced countries have adopted
and then abandoned EVM-style voting. Now that we understand what
technology can and cannot do, any new solutions to the very real
problems election officials face must address the problems, not merely
hide them from sight.

EVMs are not foolproof, says computer scientist

April 23rd, 2010DC Correspondent, Kumar Chellappan

Picking
holes. A low-budget adversary armed with a small instrument can read
out votes cast, suppress the votes of one or several voters, and even
delete all the votes.

April
22: Electronic voting machines are not as tamper-proof as the Election
Commission of India would like us to believe, going by the research of
an Israeli comuter scientist who has found flaws in the most advanced
EVMs in the world.“The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) EVMs
developed in Israel are rated as the most advanced machines in the
world. But we have proved that they are vulnerable to all kinds of
tampering,” Avishai Wool, of the School of Electrical Engineering, Tel
Aviv University, told DC on Thursday.“We can show how a low-budget
adversary armed with a small instrument can read out all votes already
cast into the ballot box, suppress the votes of one or several voters,
rewrite votes at will and even completely disqualify all votes in a
single booth,” Prof. Wool says in the paper. “These attacks are easy to
mount and very difficult to detect.”\While Prof. Wool refused to
comment on Indian EVMs, several experts have noted that most electronic
polling devices are susceptible to tampering. Prof. Wools’ comments
follow a letter qritten by David Dill, professor of computer science at
Stanford University, to Chief Election Commissioner Navin Chawla on
Indian EVMs lacking credibility.Subramanian Swamy, former Union
minister for law, said Bharat Electronics Ltd and ECIL, who developed
the Indian EVM , have withdrawn their application for a patent for the
device from the World Intellectual Property Organisation.http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article395509.ece

EVM debate rages. Jump in and cast your vote on the spot poll on this blog.

My
personal take is that advanced countries with a longer history of
democracy like the US, UK, Australia, France, Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden and many other European countries don’t use a EVM but the good
old paper and ballot. Why should we move to a EVM.

1)
The EVM does not provide a physical evidence of a vote. Whereby a re
count can be demanded. In earlier elections it has been seen that after a
re count a loosing candidate has won. A recount in EVM will just mean
adding up of all votes which will always add up to the earlier number.
How do we know this is correct.2) This machine does not allow for
any audit just because it has no physical evidence. So tomorrow we shall
all do corporate accounting on a calculator (no need for bills,
invoice, chalan etc) and show the auditors the final figure on the
screen of the calculator. This is what EVM amounts to.3) This goes against the basic Right to Information Act. Where is the evidence.4) A 10 std Physics student can rig up such a device. I wonder why you need a micro processor even.Please,
please jump in and tell the govt that we don’t need the EVM. Why are
they scared of going back to the old system when there is a section of
the population that does not believe in the authenticity of this device.
Don’t believe in the impartiality of the EC, its fully corrupted by
congress ideologues.

http://www.indianevm.com/:
EVMs are prone to tampering by both external hackers and insiders. The
danger of insider fixing of elections is recognized the world over.
Hence mere faith in companies and a host of private players handling
EVMs cannot be the basis for election results. Elections can be trusted
only if the results are verifiable and auditable. Most developed
countries have rejected or reformed direct-recording EVMs. Election
Commission of India is persisting with the voting machines ignoring the
serious concerns. Hence this effort to mobilize public opinion.

In
the Philippines ballot papers are used. Counting is done through voting
machines by optically scanning the ballots into the machine. Still, a
manual audit is mandated. In computing, if things can go wrong, they
always will; this is Murphy’s law of computing. I hope you have read
Stanford Univ. Prof. Dill’s letter to ECI.http://www.scribd.com/doc/26954805/Dr-Dill-Letter-to-ECI

The nature of the electonic counting in the Philippines

kalyan 25 Feb. 2010

EVMs and cyberlaw of the Philippines: mandated manual audit

Article posted February 24, 2010 - 09:48 PMCommission
on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo on Wednesday rejected the
idea of conducting the random manual audit before the declaration of the
winners in the May polls, saying that it will only cause unnecessary
delays.

The
poll body chief issued the statement after some groups asserted that
the random manual audit be done right after the election results are
transmitted and before the winners are proclaimed. (See: More voting
machines should be audited to ensure polls’ credibility)

Section
24 of Republic Act 9369 requires a random manual audit to be conducted
in one precinct per congressional district in each province and city.

“Any
difference between the automated and manual count will result in the
determination of root cause and initiate a manual count for those
precincts affected by the computer or procedural error,” it further
said.

But
Melo said that conducting the audit before the proclamation would cause
a great delay because the auditors would still have to “reconcile” the
marks on a ballot that were recognized and not recognized by the
Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine.

“Magkakaroon
ng variation yan, magdedebate, madedelay yan. Ang mark na ganyan,
bibilangin ng manual, pero hindi binilang ng makina, sino paniniwalaan
mo (There will definitely be a variation, triggering debate, which would
delay everything. Marks like those that are counted manually, but not
counted by the machine—which would you believe),” he said.

He
further said that it would be fine if only the proclamation of the
winners of the local elections would be delayed, but he said that even
the national positions would have to await proclamation.

“If
we are going to delay the proclamation because of a simple concern of
one machine, bakit pa tayo nag-automate (why did we automate at all)?”
he said.

Earlier,
the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel) and the
Consortium of Electoral Reforms (CER) also asked the poll body to
increase the number of voting machines that will undergo auditing.

The
groups said that at least 2.5 to 3 percent of the 82,200 PCOS units or
five poll machines per congressional district should be manually audited
to give enough assurance that the results of the elections are
credible. —Kimberly Jane T. Tan/JV,
GMANews.TVhttp://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,195328/printable.html

Security Analysis of India’s Electronic Voting Machines

Abstract:
Elections in India are conducted almost exclusively using electronic
voting machines developed over the past two decades by a pair of
government-owned companies. These devices, known in India as EVMs, have
been praised for their simple design, ease of use, and reliability, but
recently they have also been criticized because of widespread reports of
election irregularities. Despite this criticism, many details of the
machines’ design have never been publicly disclosed, and they have not
been subjected to a rigorous, independent security evaluation. In this
paper, we present a security analysis of a real Indian EVM obtained from
an anonymous source. We describe the machine’s design and operation in
detail, and we evaluate its security, in light of relevant election
procedures. We conclude that in spite of the machine’s simplicity and
minimal trusted computing base, it is vulnerable to serious attacks that
can alter election results and violate the secrecy of the ballot. We
demonstrate two attacks, implemented using custom hardware, which could
be carried out by dishonest election insiders or other criminals with
only brief physical access to the machines. This case study contains
important lessons for Indian elections and for electronic voting
security more generally.http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/…/27589262_1_v…American scientists ‘hack’ into Indian voting machinesLONDON:
India’s voting machines - considered to be among the world’s most
tamperproof - can be hacked, American scientists claim.Researchers at
the University of Michigan connected a home-made device to a voting
machine and successfully changed results by sending text messages from a
mobile.“We made an imitation display board that looks almost exactly
like the real display in the machines. But underneath some of the
components of the board, we hide a microprocessor and a Bluetooth
radio,” the BBC quoted Prof J Alex Halderman, who led the project, as
saying.He added: “Our lookalike display board intercepts the vote
totals that the machine is trying to display and replaces them with
dishonest totals - basically whatever the bad guy wants to show up at
the end of the election.”Moreover, they added a small
microprocessor, which they say can change the votes stored in the
machine between the election and the vote-counting session.No one’s
right mind would yet allow the use of absolutely antiquated, completely
out-dated, easily hack-able and highly tamper-able “high school
technology” based, obsolete EVMs (electronic voting machines) in
national elections, but it was used now — in 2014More than 80
democracies in the world have simply done away with them, dumping them
in the trash, or simply declared the usage of this simplistic voting
system susceptible to fraud, and hence declaring the same as illegal —
as the Supreme Courts of Germany and Holland indeed have done. Even
Japan, from where EVMs originated, has long abandoned its rogue babies,
and is using paper ballot system since then. All the advanced
democracies in the West, except the most dull-headed ones, have reverted
to a voter verifiable system or the ballot paper. In Canada, even at
the ,most basic school level, ballot paper voting is in use.Last
year, the Supreme Court of India, having been convinced of an
undeniable, edible possibility of EVMs getting tampered with and that
easily hacked — even from afar — had ordered the imbecilic Election
Commission and the indolent Government of India to provide about 1600
crore (1600, 0000000) rupees — convert this into your respective
currency! — for manufacturing these VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit
Trail) voting machines; which show a verifiable paper receipt to the
voter.This is the Fundamental Right of a citizen of India, as per
the laws laid down by the Constitution. However, recent newspaper
reports tell us that only 20, 000 such voting machines have been
provided for the entire country in this, 2014 election! India has 29
states now — with Telagana being the latest. In most of them, depending
upon their size etc., either about 400 VVPAT machines are being
deployed, or some such similar ridiculous number — more or less — has
been made available in the length and breadth of the country. It’s an
asinine, bland, cruel, demeaning joke we 1.25 billion voters have been
“blessed” with by the powers that be.All “patriotic” hackers of our motherland made hay in May!As
to how EVMs can be hacked into, tampered with, and results favorably
manipulated via software interference and other means — from near and
from far, far away — this can easily be found by anybody by just going
to Google etc. and filling “EVM HACKING, TAMPERING” or something to this
effect in the Search. And lo, behold! a plethora of information will
just overwhelm your overly chilled-out, lesser employed, un-billed
brains.However, the only solace for us naive fools is that quite a
few unscrupulous politicians and every other most “honorable” political
party worthy of its “salt”, would surely be playing this comic-tragic
game of hacking into and hijacking the votes of a billion people! Thus,
one who outsmarts the other such fine folks, armed with their hacking
forks in this merry-go-around, will win.The rest — this or that
“tsunami” or wave in favor of one or the other, poll forecasts and the
“newbie”, the over enthused, seeming game changers in the making — well,
they may well fall flat on their dumb faces, if not on their smart
asses.That the Supreme Court of India too, while passing the order
of putting new VVAT voting machines in use in a “phased manner”, has
unwittingly shirked its duty. In fact, it committed a grave error of
judgment. Perhaps dealt a fatal blow to Indian democracy. It should have
ordered, as a caution, that till the time this newer set of about
1300ooo voting machines is manufactured in full and so deployed
throughout India, ballot paper system would be brought in. No such
precautionary measure was decreed by the apex court.Well, crib all you
want. But don’t cry, my dear countrymen. After all, the same model of
EVMs is yet very much in use in South Africa, Bangla Desh, Bhutan,
Nepal, Nigeria, Venezuela etc. These poor folks of the said “non-techy”
countries — millions of them — too cannot figure out as to what the hell
had, yet is happening, in their dear short-circuited “developed”
democracies. Nor will you.Don’t worry, be happy! You are not alone “out there”.Oh,
by the way, the somewhat notorious lawyer who had brought in this case —
of the present lot of EVMs being tamper-able and hack-able — and, who,
had successfully fought it so, forcing the Supreme Court to order the
installation of a fail-safe voting mechanism (of Voter Verifiable Paper
Audit machines replacing the susceptible earlier Electronic Voting
Machines) to ensure a free and fair electoral process in India — well,
this oh-so-very honorable fellow too has fallen silent, like a demure
maiden. This most vociferous gentleman had openly declared on social
websites, especially Twitter, that in case VVPAT machines do not get
installed in time for 2014 elections, then, there would be a
“constitutional crisis” — putting it out there like an Indian
“pehalwan”, a la WWW wrestler, that he would challenge the same in the
apex court. He had most emphatically underlined he would ensure that
either the new fail-safe voting machines or the old time-tested paper
ballot system will be put in use during this general election in India.
However, recently, when asked specifically on Twitter about this matter —
as to what this lovely man is doing or is going to do about this
impending doomsday electoral scenario — there was a deafening silence
from his side. May be owing to the fact that since the Supreme Court
judgement late last year, this self-righteous rightist has joined the
ultra-rightist political bandwagon.The latter has been projected by
pollsters to overwhelmingly sweep these elections — as a direct result
of the doings of the monstrous public relations firm hired from the land
of the let-it-be, oops! free. This US firm is the same that was used
fruitfully by President Bush and Hillary Clinton for their respective
political campaigns. It has — let there be no doubt about it —
successfully projected its client as the potential winner and the next
numero uno in Indian politics.What the majority of the Indians have
missed in fine print is that the outgoing Chief Minister of the state of
Rajasthan, in the last year elections, had officially filed a complaint
with the election commission that the EVMs used in his state were
pre-programmed and tampered with — and that the same had come from the
state of which this presently hyped-up future Prime Minister of India,
is the current Chief Minister. Now, the lawyer who had gone to the dogs
to awaken India and the rest of the world about the mischief and
malfeasance possible with the old model of EVMs — and had in fact
written a book on this subject — is in a wink-wink deep-throat “smadhi”.
A silence that speaks truths we dumb billion idiots on this part of
slippery earth cannot fathom. Perhaps it’s a precursor of the things to
come.Let us hope the jolly good hackers of this-that party screw-up
each other’s devilish, outright evil plans. In a dog eat dog political
crap pit we hapless billion creatures have to walk through every
election, maybe this time the ape sitting by the side — the wide-eyed
hopeful citizen of India — at least gets a tiny part of the apple pie
this messy hacking cat fight will leave behind, on the side lanes.
Perhaps these little crumbs will be enough for us to stay afloat. though
not gloat.In a nutshell, simply put, whosoever “out-hacks” the other, will win.Then
again, we are an ancient civilization of more than 33, 0000000 gods and
goddesses — some civilized, others not so civil. Let’s hope one of
these fancied deities has a soft corner for us dumbos. Otherwise, we are
going to get screwed. A billion times over.Therefore, I made doubly
sure I did not vote. I sat on my ass on voting day — not that I don’t
do so everyday. This voting day, I absolutely did. Not only figuratively
and metaphorically, but literally. I may have many buts in life, but at
least today I have a little sore, yet not so sorry a butt.We are a fool’s paradise.Long live the banana republic of India!http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/…/articleshow/7049951.cms

Editorial: E-voting needs a paper trailDec. 6, 2010Eight
years after the “hanging chads” fiasco in Florida, and two months
before one of the most important presidential elections in U.S. history,
Congress still refuses to listen to the nation’s top computer
scientists and require a secure, auditable paper trail for all federal
elections. This despite the latest revelation of a serious problem with
the electronic voting machines used in 34 states — including Virginia
and Maryland — in addition to their well-publicized vulnerability to
hacking.In March, Ohio officials found a programming error that dropped
votes when the data on memory cards from multiple electronic machines
are electronically transferred to a central tabulator, as they would be
on Election Day. Dozens of lawyers are ready to file legal challenges
everywhere e-voting machines are used, even those declared “qualified”
by the National Association of State Election Directors. Such litigation
could tie up final election results far longer than it would take to
count paper ballots.State and local government officials have spent $1.5
billion on e-voting machines in recent years, most of it federal funds
under the 2002 Help America Vote Act. But instead of ensuring a fast,
secure way to count millions of votes, they got a technological
nightmare. Studies in Ohio and California confirmed that e-voting
machines currently in use can allow individuals to cast multiple votes,
load viruses that crash the system, produce fake tallies and even change
previously cast votes.As recently as May, a spokesman for Premier
Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems) blamed the Ohio
glitch on state-installed anti-virus software, but eventually admitted
to a decade-old “logic error” programmed on all 19 of its touch screen
and optical scan models. Computer experts say every e-voting machine now
in use has serious security vulnerabilities. Even a piece of white tape
on a scanner can block votes from being recorded.“We don’t know how to
make secure paperless voting,” says Stanford computer science professor
David Dill, founder of the Verified Voting Foundation and author of
Attackdog, a computer model that simulates more than 9,000 ways to
attack e-voting systems. Dr. Dill and others like him have warned again
and again that an auditable paper trail is the only way to guarantee a
secure election, the very bedrock of democracy. Congress has less than
two months to pass emergency legislation requiring state election
officials to add verifiable paper trails to all voting in the November
election. There is no more time to lose.http://washingtonexaminer.com/…/editorial-e-voting-needs-pa…

Ex
CJI SADHASIVAM, shirked its duty & committed a grave error of
judgment by allowing in phased manner Fraud Tamperable EVMs on the
request of CEC SAMPATH because of Rs.1600 crore cost to replace them and
dealt a fatal blow to the Country’s democracy.Ex CJI did not order for
ballot paper system to be brought in. No such precautionary measure was
decreed by the apex court. Ex CJI did not order that till the time this
newer set of about 13,00,000 voting machines is manufactured in full
& deployed totally. All the people in 80 democracies in the world
who simply done away with fradulent EVMs should not recognise Modi
(Murderer of democratic institutions). These Insecure EVMs must be
scraped and Fresh Lok Sabha and all the State Assembly elections
conducted with these EVMs must be scraped and Fresh elections must be
ordered to save Democracy, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality a Enshrined
in the Constitution.

BSP
is not only a political party but also a movement of societal change.
Hence this technological game of 1% Chitpawan RSS plan has to be
defeated by strengthening the 99% intellectuals by exposing the
fradulent EVMs as done by 80 democracies of the world in the larger
interest of Sarvajan Hitaye Sarvajan Sukhaye i.e., for the peace,
happiness and welfare of all societies including SC/STs/ OBCs/
Minorities and the poor brahmins and baniyas for distributing the wealth
of this country among all sections of the society as enshrined in the
Constitution by making the Supreme Court to pass orders to replace all
fradulent EVMs and till such time to scrap all elections conducted by
these fradulent EVMs and then to conduct elections with tamper proof
voting system to save democracy, equality, fraternity and liberty.

Till
all the fraud EVMs are replaced with fool proof Voting system the
present CJI must order to scrap the present Lok Sabha.& have a
collegium system of picking judges from SC/ST/OBC/Minorities for having a
fool proof voting system to safeguard Liberty, Fraternity and Equality
as enshrined in the Constitution. And also a collegium system in the
Chief Election Commission consisting SC/ST/OBC/Minorities for having a
fool proof voting system to safeguard Liberty, Fraternity and Equality
as enshrined in d Constitution to prevent Murder of Democracy.After the
fraud EVMs are replaced with fool proof voting system Lok Sabha
elections must be held, if chitpawan brahmins have to be sidelined
totally because of their politics of hatred towards all non chitpawan
brahmins, all the non- chitpawan brahmins have to unite under BSP for
Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay i.e., for the welfare and happiness of
all societies including, SC/STs, OBCs, Minorities and the poor upper
castes by sharing the wealth of the country equally among all sections
of the society as enshrined in the Constitution.

average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people;

The media projects small events and and discuss small people for their survival.

New
Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked the Election Commission to
introduce in a phased manner the paper trail in Electronic Voting
Machines (EVMs) for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, saying “it is an
indispensable requirement of free, fair and transparent” polls which
will restore confidence of the voters.

The Supreme Court, which
directed the Centre to provide financial assistance to the poll panel
for introduction Vote Verifier Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) system with the
EVMs, said it will “ensure the accuracy of the voting system” and also
help in “manual counting of votes in case of dispute.”

“The
‘paper trail’ is an indispensable requirement of free and fair
elections. The confidence of voters in the EVMs can be achieved only
with introduction of the paper trail,” it said.

“EVMs with VVPAT
system ensure the accuracy of the voting system. With an intent to have
fullest transparency in the system and to restore the confidence of the
voters, it is necessary to set up EVMs with VVPAT system because vote is
nothing but an act of expression which has immense importance in
democratic system,” the bench said.

“VVPAT is a system of
printing paper trail when the voter casts his vote, in addition to the
electronic record of the ballot, for the purpose of verification of his
choice of candidate and also for manual counting of votes in case of
dispute,” a bench comprising Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Ranjan Gogoi
said.

The bench asked the Election Commission to introduce VVPAT
in EVMs in gradual stages or geographical-wise in the 2014 general
elections.

While asking the Centre to provide financial
assistance, the bench noted the submissions made by the Election
Commission in its affidavit that it has decided to increase the use of
VVPAT units in a phased manner and has already written to the Ministry
of Law and Justice to issue administrative and financial sanction for
procurement of 20,000 units of VVPAT (10,000 each from M/s BEL and M/s
ECIL) costing Rs. 38.01 crore.

The bench said, “Taking notice of
the pragmatic and reasonable approach of the Election Commission and
considering the fact that in general elections all over India, the
Election Commission has to handle one million (ten lakh) polling booths,
we permit EC to introduce the same in gradual stages or
geographical-wise in the ensuing general elections.”

“The area,
state or actual booth(s) are to be decided by the EC and the EC is free
to implement the same in a phased manner,” it said.

The bench passed the order on two similar petitions; one of those petitions was filed by BJP leader Subramanian Swamy.

Claiming
that EVMs were open to hacking, Mr Swamy had sought directions to the
poll watchdog to introduce paper trail to easily and cheaply meet the
requirements of proof that the EVM has rightly registered the vote cast
by a voter.

Mr Swamy had moved the Supreme Court against January
2012 order of the Delhi High Court disallowing his prayer to direct
Election Commission to incorporate the system of paper trail in EVMs.

The
bench noted that though initially the poll panel was little reluctant
in introducing paper trail by use of VVPAT, pursuant to its directions,
the Election Commission contacted several expert bodies and technical
advisers and held meetings with national and state level political
parties and carried out demonstrations.

It noted that after a
thorough examination, VVPAT was successfully used in 21 polling stations
of 51-Noksen (ST) Assembly Constituency of Nagaland.

“The
information furnished by the ECI, through the affidavit dated October 1,
2013 clearly shows that VVPAT system is a successful one,” the bench
said.

Computer
scientists have demonstrated how criminals could hack an electronic
voting machine (EVM) and ’steal’ votes using a malicious programming
approach that had not been invented when the voting machine was
designed.The team of scientists from the Universites of California,
San Diego, Michigan and Princeton employed “return-oriented programming”
to force an electronic voting machine to turn against itself.

“Voting
machines must remain secure throughout their entire service lifetime,
and this study demonstrates how a relatively new programming technique
can be used to take control of a voting machine that was designed to
resist takeover, but that did not anticipate this new kind of malicious
programming,” said Hovav Shacham.

Shacham is professor of
computer science at UC San Diego’s (UC-SD )Jacobs School of Engineering
and study co-author. His study demonstrates that return-oriented
programming can be used to execute vote-stealing computations by taking
control of an EVM designed to prevent code injection.

The
computer scientists had no access to the machine’s source code - or any
other proprietary information - when designing the demonstration attack.

By
using just the information that would be available to anyone who bought
or stole a voting machine, the researchers addressed a common criticism
made against voting security researchers: that they enjoy unrealistic
access to the systems they study.

“Based on our understanding of
security and computer technology, it looks like paper-based elections
are the way to go. Probably the best approach would involve fast optical
scanners reading paper ballots. These kinds of paper-based systems are
amenable to statistical audits, which is something the election security
research community is shifting to,” said Shacham.

“You can actually run a modern and efficient election on paper,” he said.

“If you are using electronic voting machines, you need to have a separate paper record at the very least,” he added.There findings were presented at the 2009 Electronic Voting Technology Workshop.http://www.erodov.com/forums/hackers-can-steal-ballots-electronic-voting-machines/23603.html

ECI
has to answer for the holes in the bucket identified in the book edited
by Subramanian Swamy and Kalyanaraman, Electronic Voting Machines —
Unconstitutional and Tamperable (2010) http://www.flipkart.com/electronic-voting-machines-subramanian-swamy-book-8170947987A private co. had a project to EVMs. Are look-alike EVMs available in the market?Why
are EVMs being manufactured abroad (with control units burnt-in with
programs in foreign countries using Indian agents)? How can BEL/ECIL
claim IP rights for such foreign-makes? How much money has been spent
for this foreign outsourcing?

ECI should scrap EVMs which are
unconstitutional in any case and revert to paper ballots.Save democracy
which has flourished in India for over 1000 years since Uttaramerur
Inscription of Parakesari Varman of Parantaka Chola days. This was
mentioned in Constituent Assembly debates by the late T. Prakasham, CM
of composite Madras Presidency.

Sanjay Sharma, TNN, Feb 22, 2010, 03.44am ISTCHANDIGARH:
The electronic voting machines (EVMs) are being used in violation of
the Information Technology Act 2000, a research paper has revealed.

Author
of the research paper, advocate Ajay Jagga, told The Times of India, on
Sunday that as per IT Act, 2000, a verifiable audit trail has to be
provided in case of any electronic record, which is now admissible as
evidence as per Evidence Act but in case of electronic voting, the voter
does not get any receipt with regard to his voting.

The
research paper recently attracted the attention of experts when a
conference on “EVMs: How trustworthy?” in Chennai passed a unanimous
resolution on February 13 asking Jagga to approach the Election
Commission of India (ECI) for bringing the electronic voting procedure
in tune with IT Act, 2000.

Jagga said he would soon approach ECI
seeking formation of legal committee to remove the illegality or will
knock the doors of court.

The lawyer said, “Unless the voter
gets a receipt like the one we get in ATM or after the use of debit or
credit cards, all electronic transactions including a vote, are
illegal.” What is the evidence that the vote cast has really been
recorded and that it has been recorded in the manner the voter intended,
he asked.

For the purpose and to protect the secrecy of ballot,
all such receipts, after the voter has checked his transaction, should
be put in a box which should remain with ECI to be produced as evidence
in case of a dispute, he said. The government amended the relevant laws
in 1989 to equate EVM with ballot and ballot box to facilitate
transition from ballot paper to EVM but the IT Act 2000 created a new
complication that has to be immediately resolved in the interest of
fairness of things, Jagga pointed out.

The lawyer also proved
that the machine can be tampered with which has been accepted by the
government itself in its letter to withdraw patent applications filed by
Electronics Corporation of India and Bharat Electronics Ltd, makers of
the machine. The PSUs withdrew their patent applications on the ground
that the machine may not be tamper-proof, he said, adding that America
and Germany had to return to ballot paper after their machines were
found wanting.http://www.deccanchronicle.com/chennai/evms-are-not-foolproof-says-computer-scientist-540

The
Election Commission of India has made an amazing confession: that the
security and integrity of the entire election system will be compromised
if the EVM software and the hardware design becomes known.

This
is what technologists, activists and political leaders have been saying
for many months now and the Commission had steadfastly refuted such
claims with a bizarre “our EVMs are fully tamper proof” claim.

The
above revelation was made by the Election Commission in a letter dated
March 30, 2010 to V.V. Rao, petitioner in the Supreme Court on the EVMs.
I quote below:

”…The Commission is concerned that commercial
interests could use the route of reverse engineering (a process by which
the original software and hardware configuration can be accessed) which
may compromise the security and sanctity of the entire election
system.”

“…It is once again made clear that any demonstration of
alleged tamperability cannot include reverse-engineering as it
compromises security and sanctity of the entire […]

Telugu
Desam Party president N. Chandrababu Naidu doubts that electronic
voting machines (EVMs) are non-tamperable, and has sought a national
debate to “clear all the doubts in the minds of voters.”

“I am
convinced that there is scope for tampering with the EVMs,” he said here
on Monday after launching a website, www.indianevm.com, hosted by
election analyst G.V.L. Narasimha Rao and information technologist
Hariprasad.

Though he would not blame the Election Commission,
with the existing EVMs people were not sure whether the votes they cast
went to the candidates of their choice, Mr. Naidu said. When Germany,
Singapore and some European countries had gone back to the paper ballot,
as the EVMs could be tampered with and hacked, why should India alone
use such machines? “The EC should not stand on false prestige and
gracefully go in for a debate as the issue involved the fundamental
rights of the citizens.”

Mr. Naidu said he would take up the
issue with other parties. There would be nothing wrong in the country
going back to the old system of ballot votes if the machines were not
safe and susceptible to tampering.

The former Chief Secretary of
Delhi and IIT alumnus, Omesh Saigal, asked why the chip used in EVMs was
allowed to be written in the United States. “A Trojan horse is sitting
inside the machine.”

During August last, the EC said it gave
opportunities to political parties and individuals who claimed that EVMs
could be manipulated to prove their case. But “they either failed or
chose not to demonstrate,” it said.

“The EC would like to
underline that it always had a firm conviction and complete satisfaction
that EVMs could not be tampered with. Its faith in the machine has
never wavered through the conduct of elections in the last many years.”

None
was able to actually demonstrate that the EVMs used by the Commission
could be tampered with. “What has been demonstrated or claimed to have
been demonstrated is on a privately assembled lookalike of ECI-EVMs and
not the actual EVM, produced by the Electronics Corporation of India
Limited,” the Commission said.http://indiaevm.org/paper.html

Full technical paper at http://indiaevm.org/evm_tr2010.pdf

Excerpt:Conclusions

Despite
elaborate safeguards, India’s EVMs are vulnerable to serious attacks.
Dishonest insiders or other criminals with physical access to the
machines at any time before ballots are counted can insert malicious
hardware that can steal votes for the lifetime of the machines.
Attackers with physical access between voting and counting can
arbitrarily change vote totals and can learn which candidate each voter
selected. These problems are deep-rooted. The design of India’s EVMs
relies entirely on the physical security of the machines and the
integrity of election insiders. This seems to negate many of the
security benefits of using electronic voting in the first place. The
technology’s promise was that attacks on the ballot box and dishonesty
in the counting process would be more difficult. Yet we find that such
attacks remain possible, while being more difficult to detect.

It
is highly doubtful that these problems could be remedied by simple
upgrades to the existing EVMs or election procedures. Merely making the
attacks we have demonstrated more difficult will not fix the fundamental
problem: India’s EVMs do not provide transparency, so voters and
election officials have no reason for confidence that the machines are
behaving honestly.

India should carefully reconsider how to
achieve a secure and transparent voting system that is suitable to its
national values and requirements. One option that has been adopted in
other countries is to use a voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT),
which combines an electronic record stored in a DRE with a paper vote
record that can be audited by hand [43]. Existing EVMs do not have
updatable software, but it would be possible to add a VVPAT by
interposing on the cable between the control unit and the ballot unit.
Anotheroption is precinct-count optical scan (PCOS) voting, where
voters fill out paper ballots that are scanned by a voting machine at
the polling station before being placed in a ballot box. Attacking
either of these systems would require tampering with both the paper
records and the electronic records, provided that routine audits are
performed to make sure these redundant sets of records agree [14]. A
third option is to return to simple paper ballots. Despite all of their
known weaknesses, simple paper ballots provide a high degree of
transparency, so fraud that does occur will be more likely to be
detected.

Using EVMs in India may have seemed like a good idea
when the machines were introduced in the 1980s, but science’s
understanding of electronic voting security—and of attacks against
it—has progressed dramatically since then, and other technologically
advanced countries have adopted and then abandoned EVM-style voting. Now
that we understand what technology can and cannot do, any new solutions
to the very real problems election officials face must address the
problems, not merely hide them from sight.

EVMs are not foolproof, says computer scientist

April 23rd, 2010DC Correspondent, Kumar Chellappan

Picking
holes. A low-budget adversary armed with a small instrument can read
out votes cast, suppress the votes of one or several voters, and even
delete all the votes.

April 22: Electronic voting machines are
not as tamper-proof as the Election Commission of India would like us to
believe, going by the research of an Israeli comuter scientist who has
found flaws in the most advanced EVMs in the world. “The Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) EVMs developed in Israel are rated as
the most advanced machines in the world. But we have proved that they
are vulnerable to all kinds of tampering,” Avishai Wool, of the School
of Electrical Engineering, Tel Aviv University, told DC on Thursday. “We
can show how a low-budget adversary armed with a small instrument can
read out all votes already cast into the ballot box, suppress the votes
of one or several voters, rewrite votes at will and even completely
disqualify all votes in a single booth,” Prof. Wool says in the paper.
“These attacks are easy to mount and very difficult to detect.”\ While
Prof. Wool refused to comment on Indian EVMs, several experts have
noted that most electronic polling devices are susceptible to tampering.
Prof. Wools’ comments follow a letter qritten by David Dill, professor
of computer science at Stanford University, to Chief Election
Commissioner Navin Chawla on Indian EVMs lacking credibility. Subramanian
Swamy, former Union minister for law, said Bharat Electronics Ltd and
ECIL, who developed the Indian EVM , have withdrawn their application
for a patent for the device from the World Intellectual Property
Organisation.http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article395509.ece

EVM debate rages on, lets get rid of it.

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article395509.ece

EVM debate rages. Jump in and cast your vote on the spot poll on this blog.

My
personal take is that advanced countries with a longer history of
democracy like the US, UK, Australia, France, Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden and many other European countries don’t use a EVM but the good
old paper and ballot. Why should we move to a EVM.

1) The EVM
does not provide a physical evidence of a vote. Whereby a re count can
be demanded. In earlier elections it has been seen that after a re count
a loosing candidate has won. A recount in EVM will just mean adding up
of all votes which will always add up to the earlier number. How do we
know this is correct.2) This machine does not allow for any audit
just because it has no physical evidence. So tomorrow we shall all do
corporate accounting on a calculator (no need for bills, invoice, chalan
etc) and show the auditors the final figure on the screen of the
calculator. This is what EVM amounts to.3) This goes against the basic Right to Information Act. Where is the evidence.4) A 10 std Physics student can rig up such a device. I wonder why you need a micro processor even. Please,
please jump in and tell the govt that we don’t need the EVM. Why are
they scared of going back to the old system when there is a section of
the population that does not believe in the authenticity of this device.
Don’t believe in the impartiality of the EC, its fully corrupted by
congress ideologues.

PS:
UPA won a surprise victory in 2004 and left many stunned about NDA’s
loss. Many never expected this but it happened. Incidentally EVM were
first used in 2004. http://sowingseedsofthought.blogspot.com/2010/04/evm-debate-rages-on-lets-get-rid-of-it.html

http://www.indianevm.com/
: EVMs are prone to tampering by both external hackers and insiders.
The danger of insider fixing of elections is recognized the world over.
Hence mere faith in companies and a host of private players handling
EVMs cannot be the basis for election results. Elections can be trusted
only if the results are verifiable and auditable. Most developed
countries have rejected or reformed direct-recording EVMs. Election
Commission of India is persisting with the voting machines ignoring the
serious concerns. Hence this effort to mobilize public opinion.

In
the Philippines ballot papers are used. Counting is done through voting
machines by optically scanning the ballots into the machine. Still, a
manual audit is mandated. In computing, if things can go wrong, they
always will; this is Murphy’s law of computing. I hope you have read
Stanford Univ. Prof. Dill’s letter to
ECI. http://www.scribd.com/doc/26954805/Dr-Dill-Letter-to-ECI

The nature of the electonic counting in the Philippines

kalyan 25 Feb. 2010

EVMs and cyberlaw of the Philippines: mandated manual audit

Article posted February 24, 2010 - 09:48 PMCommission
on Elections (Comelec) chairman Jose Melo on Wednesday rejected the
idea of conducting the random manual audit before the declaration of the
winners in the May polls, saying that it will only cause unnecessary
delays.

The
poll body chief issued the statement after some groups asserted that
the random manual audit be done right after the election results are
transmitted and before the winners are proclaimed. (See: More voting
machines should be audited to ensure polls’ credibility)

Section
24 of Republic Act 9369 requires a random manual audit to be conducted
in one precinct per congressional district in each province and city.

“Any
difference between the automated and manual count will result in the
determination of root cause and initiate a manual count for those
precincts affected by the computer or procedural error,” it further
said.

But Melo said that conducting the audit before the
proclamation would cause a great delay because the auditors would still
have to “reconcile” the marks on a ballot that were recognized and not
recognized by the Precinct Count Optical Scan (PCOS) machine.

“Magkakaroon
ng variation yan, magdedebate, madedelay yan. Ang mark na ganyan,
bibilangin ng manual, pero hindi binilang ng makina, sino paniniwalaan
mo (There will definitely be a variation, triggering debate, which would
delay everything. Marks like those that are counted manually, but not
counted by the machine—which would you believe),” he said.

He
further said that it would be fine if only the proclamation of the
winners of the local elections would be delayed, but he said that even
the national positions would have to await proclamation.

“If we
are going to delay the proclamation because of a simple concern of one
machine, bakit pa tayo nag-automate (why did we automate at all)?” he
said.

Earlier, the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections
(Namfrel) and the Consortium of Electoral Reforms (CER) also asked the
poll body to increase the number of voting machines that will undergo
auditing.

The groups said that at least 2.5 to 3 percent of the
82,200 PCOS units or five poll machines per congressional district
should be manually audited to give enough assurance that the results of
the elections are credible. —Kimberly Jane T. Tan/JV, GMANews.TVhttp://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,195328/printable.html

Security Analysis of India’s Electronic Voting Machines

Abstract:
Elections in India are conducted almost exclusively using electronic
voting machines developed over the past two decades by a pair of
government-owned companies. These devices, known in India as EVMs, have
been praised for their simple design, ease of use, and reliability, but
recently they have also been criticized because of widespread reports of
election irregularities. Despite this criticism, many details of the
machines’ design have never been publicly disclosed, and they have not
been subjected to a rigorous, independent security evaluation. In this
paper, we present a security analysis of a real Indian EVM obtained from
an anonymous source. We describe the machine’s design and operation in
detail, and we evaluate its security, in light of relevant election
procedures. We conclude that in spite of the machine’s simplicity and
minimal trusted computing base, it is vulnerable to serious attacks that
can alter election results and violate the secrecy of the ballot. We
demonstrate two attacks, implemented using custom hardware, which could
be carried out by dishonest election insiders or other criminals with
only brief physical access to the machines. This case study contains
important lessons for Indian elections and for electronic voting
security more generally. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-05-20/news/27589262_1_voting-machines-display-board-hack American scientists ‘hack’ into Indian voting machines LONDON:
India’s voting machines - considered to be among the world’s most
tamperproof - can be hacked, American scientists claim. Researchers at
the University of Michigan connected a home-made device to a voting
machine and successfully changed results by sending text messages from a
mobile. “We made an imitation display board that looks almost exactly
like the real display in the machines. But underneath some of the
components of the board, we hide a microprocessor and a Bluetooth
radio,” the BBC quoted Prof J Alex Halderman, who led the project, as
saying. He added: “Our lookalike display board intercepts the vote
totals that the machine is trying to display and replaces them with
dishonest totals - basically whatever the bad guy wants to show up at
the end of the election.” Moreover, they added a small
microprocessor, which they say can change the votes stored in the
machine between the election and the vote-counting session. No one’s
right mind would yet allow the use of absolutely antiquated, completely
out-dated, easily hack-able and highly tamper-able “high school
technology” based, obsolete EVMs (electronic voting machines) in
national elections, but it was used now — in 2014 More than 80
democracies in the world have simply done away with them, dumping them
in the trash, or simply declared the usage of this simplistic voting
system susceptible to fraud, and hence declaring the same as
illegal — as the Supreme Courts of Germany and Holland indeed have done.
Even Japan, from where EVMs originated, has long abandoned its rogue
babies, and is using paper ballot system since then. All the advanced
democracies in the West, except the most dull-headed ones, have reverted
to a voter verifiable system or the ballot paper. In Canada, even at
the ,most basic school level, ballot paper voting is in use. Last
year, the Supreme Court of India, having been convinced of an
undeniable, edible possibility of EVMs getting tampered with and that
easily hacked — even from afar — had ordered the imbecilic Election
Commission and the indolent Government of India to provide about 1600
crore (1600, 0000000) rupees — convert this into your respective
currency! — for manufacturing these VVPAT (Voter Verifiable Paper Audit
Trail) voting machines; which show a verifiable paper receipt to the
voter. This is the Fundamental Right of a citizen of India, as per
the laws laid down by the Constitution. However, recent newspaper
reports tell us that only 20, 000 such voting machines have been
provided for the entire country in this, 2014 election! India has 29
states now — with Telagana being the latest. In most of them, depending
upon their size etc., either about 400 VVPAT machines are being
deployed, or some such similar ridiculous number — more or less — has
been made available in the length and breadth of the country. It’s an
asinine, bland, cruel, demeaning joke we 1.25 billion voters have been
“blessed” with by the powers that be. All “patriotic” hackers of our motherland made hay in May! As
to how EVMs can be hacked into, tampered with, and results favorably
manipulated via software interference and other means — from near and
from far, far away — this can easily be found by anybody by just going
to Google etc. and filling “EVM HACKING, TAMPERING” or something to this
effect in the Search. And lo, behold! a plethora of information will
just overwhelm your overly chilled-out, lesser employed, un-billed
brains. However, the only solace for us naive fools is that quite a
few unscrupulous politicians and every other most “honorable” political
party worthy of its “salt”, would surely be playing this comic-tragic
game of hacking into and hijacking the votes of a billion people! Thus,
one who outsmarts the other such fine folks, armed with their hacking
forks in this merry-go-around, will win. The rest — this or that
“tsunami” or wave in favor of one or the other, poll forecasts and the
“newbie”, the over enthused, seeming game changers in the making — well,
they may well fall flat on their dumb faces, if not on their smart
asses. That the Supreme Court of India too, while passing the order
of putting new VVAT voting machines in use in a “phased manner”, has
unwittingly shirked its duty. In fact, it committed a grave error of
judgment. Perhaps dealt a fatal blow to Indian democracy. It should have
ordered, as a caution, that till the time this newer set of about
1300ooo voting machines is manufactured in full and so deployed
throughout India, ballot paper system would be brought in. No such
precautionary measure was decreed by the apex court. Well, crib all you
want. But don’t cry, my dear countrymen. After all, the same model of
EVMs is yet very much in use in South Africa, Bangla Desh, Bhutan,
Nepal, Nigeria, Venezuela etc. These poor folks of the said “non-techy”
countries — millions of them — too cannot figure out as to what the hell
had, yet is happening, in their dear short-circuited “developed”
democracies. Nor will you. Don’t worry, be happy! You are not alone “out there”. Oh,
by the way, the somewhat notorious lawyer who had brought in this
case — of the present lot of EVMs being tamper-able and hack-able — and,
who, had successfully fought it so, forcing the Supreme Court to order
the installation of a fail-safe voting mechanism (of Voter Verifiable
Paper Audit machines replacing the susceptible earlier Electronic Voting
Machines) to ensure a free and fair electoral process in India — well,
this oh-so-very honorable fellow too has fallen silent, like a demure
maiden. This most vociferous gentleman had openly declared on social
websites, especially Twitter, that in case VVPAT machines do not get
installed in time for 2014 elections, then, there would be a
“constitutional crisis” — putting it out there like an Indian
“pehalwan”, a la WWW wrestler, that he would challenge the same in the
apex court. He had most emphatically underlined he would ensure that
either the new fail-safe voting machines or the old time-tested paper
ballot system will be put in use during this general election in India.
However, recently, when asked specifically on Twitter about this
matter — as to what this lovely man is doing or is going to do about
this impending doomsday electoral scenario — there was a deafening
silence from his side. May be owing to the fact that since the Supreme
Court judgement late last year, this self-righteous rightist has joined
the ultra-rightist political bandwagon. The latter has been
projected by pollsters to overwhelmingly sweep these elections — as a
direct result of the doings of the monstrous public relations firm hired
from the land of the let-it-be, oops! free. This US firm is the same
that was used fruitfully by President Bush and Hillary Clinton for their
respective political campaigns. It has — let there be no doubt about
it — successfully projected its client as the potential winner and the
next numero uno in Indian politics. What the majority of the Indians
have missed in fine print is that the outgoing Chief Minister of the
state of Rajasthan, in the last year elections, had officially filed a
complaint with the election commission that the EVMs used in his state
were pre-programmed and tampered with — and that the same had come from
the state of which this presently hyped-up future Prime Minister of
India, is the current Chief Minister. Now, the lawyer who had gone to
the dogs to awaken India and the rest of the world about the mischief
and malfeasance possible with the old model of EVMs — and had in fact
written a book on this subject — is in a wink-wink deep-throat “smadhi”.
A silence that speaks truths we dumb billion idiots on this part of
slippery earth cannot fathom. Perhaps it’s a precursor of the things to
come. Let us hope the jolly good hackers of this-that party screw-up
each other’s devilish, outright evil plans. In a dog eat dog political
crap pit we hapless billion creatures have to walk through every
election, maybe this time the ape sitting by the side — the wide-eyed
hopeful citizen of India — at least gets a tiny part of the apple pie
this messy hacking cat fight will leave behind, on the side lanes.
Perhaps these little crumbs will be enough for us to stay afloat. though
not gloat. In a nutshell, simply put, whosoever “out-hacks” the other, will win. Then
again, we are an ancient civilization of more than 33, 0000000 gods and
goddesses — some civilized, others not so civil. Let’s hope one of
these fancied deities has a soft corner for us dumbos. Otherwise, we are
going to get screwed. A billion times over. Therefore, I made
doubly sure I did not vote. I sat on my ass on voting day — not that I
don’t do so everyday. This voting day, I absolutely did. Not only
figuratively and metaphorically, but literally. I may have many buts in
life, but at least today I have a little sore, yet not so sorry a butt. We are a fool’s paradise. Long live the banana republic of India!http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/6-EVMs-recovered-from-scrap-dealers/articleshow/7049951.cms

Editorial: E-voting needs a paper trailDec. 6, 2010Eight
years after the “hanging chads” fiasco in Florida, and two months
before one of the most important presidential elections in U.S. history,
Congress still refuses to listen to the nation’s top computer
scientists and require a secure, auditable paper trail for all federal
elections. This despite the latest revelation of a serious problem with
the electronic voting machines used in 34 states — including Virginia
and Maryland — in addition to their well-publicized vulnerability to
hacking. In March, Ohio officials found a programming error that
dropped votes when the data on memory cards from multiple electronic
machines are electronically transferred to a central tabulator, as they
would be on Election Day. Dozens of lawyers are ready to file legal
challenges everywhere e-voting machines are used, even those declared
“qualified” by the National Association of State Election Directors.
Such litigation could tie up final election results far longer than it
would take to count paper ballots. State and local government officials
have spent $1.5 billion on e-voting machines in recent years, most of
it federal funds under the 2002 Help America Vote Act. But instead of
ensuring a fast, secure way to count millions of votes, they got a
technological nightmare. Studies in Ohio and California confirmed that
e-voting machines currently in use can allow individuals to cast
multiple votes, load viruses that crash the system, produce fake tallies
and even change previously cast votes. As recently as May, a spokesman
for Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold Election Systems)
blamed the Ohio glitch on state-installed anti-virus software, but
eventually admitted to a decade-old “logic error” programmed on all 19
of its touch screen and optical scan models. Computer experts say every
e-voting machine now in use has serious security vulnerabilities. Even a
piece of white tape on a scanner can block votes from being
recorded. “We don’t know how to make secure paperless voting,” says
Stanford computer science professor David Dill, founder of the Verified
Voting Foundation and author of Attackdog, a computer model that
simulates more than 9,000 ways to attack e-voting systems. Dr. Dill and
others like him have warned again and again that an auditable paper
trail is the only way to guarantee a secure election, the very bedrock
of democracy. Congress has less than two months to pass emergency
legislation requiring state election officials to add verifiable paper
trails to all voting in the November election. There is no more time to
lose.http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorial-e-voting-needs-paper-trail

Source: http://www.indianevm.com/

Download:

http://www.supremecourtofindia.nic.in/outtoday/wp%28c%29No.161of2004.pdfEx
CJI SADHASIVAM, shirked its duty & committed a grave error of
judgment by allowing in phased manner Fraud Tamperable EVMs on the
request of CEC SAMPATH because of Rs.1600 crore cost to replace them
and dealt a fatal blow to the Country’s democracy. Ex CJI did not order
for ballot paper system to be brought in. No such precautionary measure
was decreed by the apex court. Ex CJI did not order that till the time
this newer set of about 13,00,000 voting machines is manufactured in
full & deployed totally. All the people in 80 democracies in the
world who simply done away with fradulent EVMs should not recognise
Modi (Murderer of democratic institutions). These Insecure EVMs must be
scraped and Fresh Lok Sabha and all the State Assembly elections
conducted with these EVMs must be scraped and Fresh elections must be
ordered to save Democracy, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality a Enshrined
in the Constitution.

BSP is not only a political party but also a
movement of societal change. Hence this technological game of 1%
Chitpawan RSS plan has to be defeated by strengthening the 99%
intellectuals by exposing the fradulent EVMs as done by 80 democracies
of the world in the larger interest of Sarvajan Hitaye Sarvajan Sukhaye
i.e., for the peace, happiness and welfare of all societies including
SC/STs/ OBCs/ Minorities and the poor brahmins and baniyas for
distributing the wealth of this country among all sections of the
society as enshrined in the Constitution by making the Supreme Court to
pass orders to replace all fradulent EVMs and till such time to scrap
all elections conducted by these fradulent EVMs and then to conduct
elections with tamper proof voting system to save democracy, equality,
fraternity and liberty.

Till
all the fraud EVMs are replaced with fool proof Voting system the
present CJI must order to scrap the present Lok Sabha.& have a
collegium system of picking judges from SC/ST/OBC/Minorities for having a
fool proof voting system to safeguard Liberty, Fraternity and Equality
as enshrined in the Constitution. And also a collegium system in the
Chief Election Commission consisting SC/ST/OBC/Minorities for having a
fool proof voting system to safeguard Liberty, Fraternity and Equality
as enshrined in d Constitution to prevent Murder of Democracy.After the
fraud EVMs are replaced with fool proof voting system Lok Sabha
elections must be held, if chitpawan brahmins have to be sidelined
totally because of their politics of hatred towards all non chitpawan
brahmins, all the non- chitpawan brahmins have to unite under BSP for
Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay i.e., for the welfare and happiness of
all societies including, SC/STs, OBCs, Minorities and the poor upper
castes by sharing the wealth of the country equally among all sections
of the society as enshrined in the Constitution.

Increasing threats to the democratic-secular
Indian polity from the Hindutva organizations - a concise document on
the anti-national game-plan of the RSS

The 20th century
descriptions of this 1% RSS chitpavan brahmins list inordinate
frugality, untrustworthiness, conspiratorialism, phlegmatism not only
murder democracy but also the real spirituality of this nation. The
true cultural identity of this country is Jambudvipan that is Prabuddha
Bharath since all belong to the same race with Buddha Nature practicing
equality, fraternity and liberty as enshrined in the Constitution based
on Dhamma.

From its inception, the RSS has been dominated by the
Brahminical elite, especially the Chitpawan Brahmins, who regard
themselves as a cut above the rest.Chitpawans’ domination in the Sangh’s highest echelons has been almost total.

http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ch49.htm

Half
a century ago, Dr. Ambedkar surveyed the existing data on the physical
anthropology of the different castes in his book The Untouchables. He
found that the received wisdom of a racial basis of caste was not
supported by the data, e.g.: The table for Bengal shows that the Chandal
who stands sixth in the scheme of social precedence and whose touch
pollutes, is not much differentiated from the Brahmin () In Bombay the
Deshastha Brahmin bears a closer affinity to the Son-Koli, a fisherman
caste, than to his own compeer, the Chitpavan Brahmin.

Chitpavan
brahmin demonstrates younger maternal component and substantial
paternal gene flow from West Asia, thus giving credence to their recent
Irano-Scythian ancestry from Mediterranean or Turkey, which correlated
well with European-looking features of this caste. This also explains
their untraceable ethno-history before 1000 years, brahminization event
and later amalgamation by Maratha.”

The Caucasian link of
Chitpavan-brahmin has also been inferred from biparental microsatellites
variations (Figure 3c). The observed genomic analyses asserted the
ethnographical fact that Chitpavan-brahmin share ancestry with
conspicuously European-looking Pagan or Alpine group, who under
religious pressure had migrated from Anatolian Turkey or East Europe to
Gujarat coast probably via sea-vessel. Besides, their documented history
is untraceable beyond 1000 years, further indicating that they were not
part of the original Vedic migrations (early Indo-European) on the west
coast. Therefore, the present genome analyses provide conclusive
evidence of their recent migration, genesis, and expansion after they
migrated from “Sopara” (India’s western trade zone) to geographically
isolated Konkan-region, where they adopted “Konkani” language, and
cultivated cash crop. Their considerable genetic affinity with Maratha
caste further corroborated the prevalent norm that few of the dynamic
and intelligent Chitpavans were “Brahmanized” for performing religious
rituals in King Shivaji’s court (elite Maratha group) and some members
were given the title of “Peshwa” or Minister for managing the
administration of Maratha kingdom, which was extended farther north
after King’s death under their rule. We observed 15% similar HVS -1
sequence motif (M4 lineage) between Chitpavan-brahmin and Bene-Israeli
(or Indian Jews), probably suggesting similar indigenous Paleolithic
contribution. Compared to Desasth-brahmin, Kokanasth-brahmin showed
lowest biparental diversity, younger age of population based upon Tau
value, larger genetic affinity with West Asians plus East Europeans
suggesting their recent descent, in absence of bottleneck effect.

Conclusions

Our
comprehensive genomic analyses showed divergent paternal and maternal
ancestry of studied four castes correlating well with their varied
migration and exchequer demographic histories. The distribution and
admixture of Western-Eurasian-specific mtDNA and Y-chromosomal
haplogroups lend support to the diverse genesis of western ranked
castes. The asymmetrical Proto-Asian component and Western-Eurasian
admixture in two brahmin castes explained the “Scytho-Dravidian” origin
of elite, ancient Desasth-brahmin and much recent “Irano-Scythian”
ancestry (West Asia, East Europe) of Chitpavan-brahmin. Maratha and
Dhangar have significant Pleistocene gene pool corroborating their
“Proto-Asian” origin.

Maratha warrior caste has experienced gene
flow from Anatolian agriculturist (J2) supporting the conglomeration of
migrant agricultural communities. The recombining STR loci did not
reveal significant difference in population structure attributing to
hypergamy between Brahmins and Maratha, and shared ancestry of Dhangar
and Maratha. This study interestingly surmises the synchronization of
caste stratification with West-Eurasians admixture in “Gangetic” plains,
which spread in western territory due to demographic and economic
reasons.

On KoBras (the Konkanastha Chitpavan Brahmin Community) of West India

The
Chitpavan or Chitpawan, are Brahmins native to the Konkan predominantly
Hindu, but with a sizeable Christian Protestant.Until Until the
18th century,the Chitpavans were not esteemed in social ranking, and
were indeed considered by other Brahmin tribes as being an inferior
caste of Brahmins.It remains concentrated in Maharashtra but also has
populations all over India & d rest of the world.(USA & UK.)

According
to Bene Israeli legend, the Chitpavan and Bene Israel are descendants
from a group of 14 people shipwrecked off the Konkan coast. One
group converted to Hinduism as Chitpavan Brahmins, the other remained
Jewish or Bene Israel.The Konkan region has been inhabited by several
immigrant groups including the Parsis, the Bene Israelis, the
Kudaldeshkar Gaud Brahmins, and the Konkani Saraswat Brahmins, and the
Chitpavan Brahmins were the last of these immigrant arrivals.The
Satavahanas were great sanskritisers. It is possibly at their time that
the new group of Chitpavan Brahmins were formed.Also, a reference to
the Chitpavan surname Ghaisas, written in Prakrut Marathi can be seen
on a tamra-pat (bronze plaque) of the Year 1060 A.D. belonging to
the King Mamruni of Shilahara Kingdom, found at Diveagar in Konkan.With
the accession of Balaji Bhat and his family to the supreme authority of
the Maratha Confederacy, Chitpavan immigrants began arriving en
masse from the Konkan to Pune where the Peshwa offered all important
offices his fellow-castemen. The Chitpavan kin were rewarded with tax
relief and grants of land. Historians cite nepotism and corruption as
causes of the fall of the Maratha Empire in 1818. Richard Maxwell Eatonstates
that this rise of the Chitpavans is a classic example of social rank
rising with political fortune. The alleged haughty behavior by the
upstart Chitpvans caused conflicts with other communities which
manifested itself as late as in 1948 in the form of anti-Brahminism
after the killing of Mahatama Gandhi by Nathuram Godse, a Chitpavan.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak After the fall of the Maratha Empire in 1818, the
Chitpavans lost their political dominance to the British. The
British would not subsidize the Chitpavans on the same scale that their
caste-fellow, the Peshwas haddone in the past. Pay and power was now
significantly reduced. Poorer Chitpavan students adapted and started
learning English because of better opportunities in the British
administration. Some of the strongest resistance to change also came
from the very same community. Jealously guarding their Brahmin
stature, the orthodox among the Chitpavans were not eager to see the
Shastras challenged, nor the conduct of the Brahmins becoming
indistinguishable from that of the Sudras. The vanguard and the old
guard clashed many times. The Chitpavan community includes two major
politicians in the Gandhian tradition: Gopal Krishna Gokhale whom he
acknowledged as a preceptor, and Vinoba Bhave, one of his
outstanding disciples. Gandhi describes Bhave as the Jewel of his
disciples, and recognized Gokhale as his political guru. However,
strong opposition to Gandhi also came from within the Chitpavan
community. V D Savarkar, the founder of the Hindu nationalist political
ideology Hindutva, was a Chitpavan Brahmin. Several members of the
Chitpavan community were among the first to embrace the Hindutva
ideology, which they thought was a logical extension of the legacy of
the Peshwas and caste-fellow Tilak. These Chitpavans felt out of place
with the Indian social reform movement of Mahatama Phule and the mass
politics of Mahatama Gandhi. Large numbers of the community looked
to Savarkar, the Hindu Mahasabha and finally the RSS. Gandhi’s assassins
Narayan Apte and Nathuram Godse, drew their inspiration from fringe
groups in this reactionary trend. The Chitpavans have considered
themselves to be both warriors and priests.The willingness of the Chitpavans
to enter military and other services. The Hindu Chitpavan Brahmins
celebrate several festivals according to the Hindu Calendar.Traditionally,
the Chitpavan Brahmins were a community of astrologers and priests who
offer religious services to other communities. The 20th century
descriptions of the Chitpavans list inordinate frugality,
untrustworthiness, conspiratorialism, phlegmatism. Agriculture was the second
major occupation in the community, practised by the those who possess
arable land. Later, Chitpavans became prominent in various white collar
jobs and business. Most of the Chitpavan Brahmins in Maharashtra have
adopted Marathi as their language. Till the 1940s, most of the Chitpavans
in Konkan spoke a dialect called Chitpavani Konkani in their homes.
Even at that time, reports recorded Chitpavani as a fast disappearing
language. But in Dakshina Kannada District and Udupi Districts of
Karnataka, this language is being spoken in places like Durga and
Maala of Karkala taluk and also in places like Shishila and Mundaje of
Belthangady Taluk.There are no inherently nasalized vowels in standard
Marathi whereas the Chitpavani dialect of Marathi does have nasalized
vowels.Earlier, the Deshastha Brahmins believed that they were the
highest of all Brahmins, and looked down upon the Chitpavans as parvenus
(a relative newcomer to a socioeconomic class), barely equal to the noblest
of dvijas. Even the Peshwa was denied the rights to use the ghats
reserved for Deshasth priests at Nashik on the Godavari.This usurping of
power by Chitpavans from the Deshastha Brahmins resulted in intense
rivalry between the two Brahmin communities which continued in late Colonial
British India times. The 19th century records also mention Gramanyas or
village-level debates between the Chitpavans, and two other communities,
namely the Daivajnas, and the Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhus. This
lasted for about ten years.Half a century ago,Dr.Ambedkar surveyed
the existing data on the physical anthropology of the different castes
in his book The Untouchables.He found that the received wisdom of a
racial basis of caste was not supported by the data,e.g.:The table for
Bengal shows that the Chandal who stands sixth in the scheme of
social precedence and whose touch pollutes, is not much differentiated
from the Brahmin () In Bombay the Deshastha Brahmin bears a closer
affinity to the Son-Koli, a fisherman caste, than to his own compeer,
the Chitpavan Brahmin. The Mahar, the Untouchable of the Maratha
region, comes next together with the Kunbi, the peasant. They follow in
order the Shenvi Brahmin, the Nagar Brahmin and the high-caste
Maratha. These results () mean that there is no correspondence between
social gradation and physical differentiation in Bombay.A remarkable
case of differentiation in skull and nose indexes, noted by Dr.
Ambedkar, was found to exist between the Brahmin and the (untouchable)
Chamar of Uttar Pradesh. But this does not prove that Brahmins are
foreigners, because the data for the U.P. Brahmin were found to be
very close to those for the Khattri and the untouchable Chuhra of
Panjab. If the U.P. Brahmin is indeed foreign to U.P., he is by no
means foreign to India, at least not more than the Panjab
untouchables. This confirms the scenario which we can derive from the
Vedic and ItihAsa-PurANa literature:the Vedic tradition was brought
east from d Vedic heartland by Brahmins who were physically
indistinguishable from the lower castes there, when the heartland in
Punjab-Haryana at its apogee exported its culture to the whole
Aryavarta (comparable to the planned importation of Brahmins into
Bengal and the South around the turn of the Christian era). These were
just two of the numerous intra-Indian migrations of caste
groups.Recent research has not refuted Ambedkars views. A press report
on a recent anthropological survey led by Kumar Suresh Singh
explains:English anthropologists contended that the upper castes of
India belonged to the Caucasian race and the rest drew their origin
from Australoid types.The survey has revealed this to be a
myth. Biologically and linguistically, we are very mixed, says Suresh
Singh () The report says that the people of India have more genes in
common, and also share a large number of morphological traits. There
is much greater homogenization in terms of morphological and genetic
traits at the regional level, says the report. For example, the Brahmins
of Tamil Nadu (esp.Iyengars) share more traits with non-Brahmins in d
state than with fellow Brahmins in western or northern India. The
sons-of-the-soil theory also stands demolished. The Anthropological
Survey of India has found no community in India that cant remember having
migrated from some other part of the country.Internal migration
accounts for much of India’s complex ethnic landscape, while there is no
evidence of a separate or foreign origin for the upper castes.Among
other scientists who reject the identification of caste (varNa) with race
on physical-anthropological grounds, we may cite Kailash C.
Malhotra:Detailed anthropometric surveys carried out among the people of
Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Bengal and Tamil Nadu revealed
significant regional differences within a caste and a closer resemblance
between castes of different varnas within a region than between
sub-populations of the caste from different regions. On the basis of
analysis of stature, cephalic and nasal index, H.K. Rakshit (1966)
concludes that the Brahmins of India are heterogeneous & suggest incorporation
of more than one physical type involving more than one migration of
people.A more detailed study among 8 Brahmin castes in Maharashtra
on whom 18 metric,16 scopic and 8 genetic markers were studied, revealed
not only a great heterogeneity in both morphological and genetic
characteristics but also showed that 3 Brahmin castes were closer to
non-Brahmin castes than [to the] other Brahmin castes. P.P.
Majumdar and K.C. Malhotra (1974) observed a great deal of heterogeneity
with respect to OAB blood group system among 50 Brahmin samples
spread over 11 Indian states. The evidence thus suggests that varna is a
sociological and not a homogeneous biological entity.

Indians are descendants of Hindutva culture: RSS chiefMohan
Bhagwat said if inhabitants of England are English, Germany are Germans
and USA are Americans then why all inhabitants of Hindustan are not
known as Hindus.

http://www.countercurrents.org/islam130815.htm

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Equip Ideologically To Challenge The Anti-National RSS

By Shamsul Islam

13 August, 2015 Countercurrents.org

Photo Courtesy: The Hindu

Friends
from India and abroad who are concerned about the increasing threats to
the democratic-secular Indian polity from the Hindutva organizations
have been writing to me for preparing a concise document on the
anti-national game-plan of the RSS and other like-minded offshoots. The
need of such a document is rightly felt for countering the Hindutva
propaganda at all levels. The following document is an attempt to
accomplish this objective. It is hoped that equipped with this document
all those who love India as a democratic-secular nation would be able to
challenge the fountain-head of the Hindutva politics. This document is
based solely on the documents drawn from the RSS archives.This document underlines the following cardinal principles of the RSS world view:

Doubtlessly
Hitler is a great hero for RSS. The RSS as great champions of Hindutva
want to deprive minorities of their all civil and human rights
shamelessly and openly adhering to the totalitarian models of Hitler.
This fascist outlook towards minorities specially Muslims and Christians
was clearly elaborated by the senior ideologue of the RSS, MS
Golwalkar, in his book, We or Our Nationhood Defined. This book
published in the year 1939, gives an insight into the thinking of the
RSS leadership. We find Golwalkar in this book idealizing the Nazi
cultural nationalism of Hitler in the following words:

“German
Race pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of
the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the
country of the Semitic Races—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has
been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it
is for Races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be
assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to
learn and profit by.”[MS Golwalkar, We Or Our Nationhood Defined, Bharat Publications, Nagpur, 1939, p. 35.]

Golwalkar
unhesitatingly wanted to model his Hindu Rashtra or Nation on Hitler’s
totalitarian and fascist pattern as is clear from the following words of
his in the same book:

“It is worth bearing well in mind how
these old Nations solve their minorities [sic] problem. They do not
undertake to recognize any separate element in their polity. Emigrants
have to get themselves naturally assimilated in the principal mass of
the population, the National Race,by adopting its culture and language
and sharing in its aspirations, by losing all consciousness of their
separate existence, forgetting their foreign origin. If they do not do
so, they live merely as outsiders,bound by all the codes and conventions
of the Nation, at the sufferance of the Nation and deserving no special
protection, far less any privilege or rights. There are only two
courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the
national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as
the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the
sweet will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the
minorities [sic] problem. That is the only logical and correct solution.
That alone keeps the national life healthy and undisturbed. That alone
keeps the nation safe from the danger of a cancer developing into its
body politic of the creation of a state within a state.”[MS Golwalkar, We Or Our Nationhood Defined, Bharat Publications, Nagpur, 1939, p. 47.]

RSS
and its fraternal organization, Hindu Mahasabha were very angry when
Indian Constituent Assembly adopted a democratic-Secular Constitution
under the supervision of Dr. BR Ambedkar. VD Savarkar as leader of
Hindutva believed:

“Manusmriti is that scripture which is most
worship-able afterVedas for our Hindu Nation and which from ancient
times has become the basis of our culture-customs, thought andpractice.
This book for centuries has codified the spiritualand divine march of
our nation. Even today the rules which are followed by crores of Hindus
in their lives and practiceare based on Manusmriti. Today Manusmriti is
Hindu Law”.[VD Savarkar, ‘Women in Manusmriti’ in Savarkar Samagar
(collection of Savarkar’s writings in Hindi), vol. 4, Prabhat, Delhi, p.
416.]

The democratic-secular Indian Constitution was adopted
by the Constituent Assembly on November 26, 1949, RSSEnglish organ,
Organizer in an editorial on November 30, 1949, complained:

“But
in our constitution there is no mention of the unique constitutional
development in ancient Bharat. Manu’s Laws were written long before
Lycurgus of Sparta or Solon of Persia. To this day his laws as
enunciated in the Manusmriti excite the admiration of the world and
elicit spontaneous obedience and conformity. But to our constitutional
pundits that means nothing”.

How loyal the RSS is to the Constitution of India can be known by the following statement of Golwalkar:

“Our
Constitution too is just a cumbersome and heterogeneous piecing
together of various articles from various Constitutions of the Western
countries. It has absolutely nothing which can be called our own. Is
there a single word of reference in its guiding principles as to what
our national mission is and what our keynote in life is? No!”[MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 238.]

(3) RSS HAS ETERNAL BELIEF IN CASTEISM

Golwalkar,
the most prominent ideologue of the RSS like Savarkar, believed that
Casteism was a natural integral part of Hinduism. In fact, Golwalkar
went to the extent of declaring that Casteism was synonymous with the
Hindu nation. According to him, the Hindu people are none else but, “the
Virat Purusha, the Almighty manifesting himself… [according to purusha
sukta] sun and moon are his eyes, the stars and the skies are created
from his nabhi [navel] and Brahmin is the head, Kshatriya the hands,
Vaishya the thighs and Shudra the feet. This means that the people who
have this fourfold arrangement, i.e., the Hindu People, is [sic] our
God. This supreme vision of Godhead is the very core of our concept of
‘nation’ and has permeated our thinking and given rise to various unique
concepts of our cultural heritage.[Italics as in the original][MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, pp. 36-37.]

(4) RSS DENIGRATESTHE NATIONAL FLAG

The
English organ of the RSS,Organizer (dated August 14, 1947) carried
afeature titled ‘mystery behind the bhagwa dhawaj’ (saffronflag) which
while demanding hoisting of saffron flag at theramparts of Red Fort in
Delhi, openly denigrated the choice of the Tri-colour as the National
Flag in the following words:“The people who have come to power by
the kick of fate may give in our hands the Tricolour but it never be
respected and owned by Hindus. The word three is in itself an evil, and a
flag having three colours will certainly produce a very bad
psychological effect and is injurious to a country.”Thus the National Flag was declared to be inauspicious and injurious for India!

(5) RSS AGAINST DEMOCRAY AND FOR TOTALITARIANISM

The
RSS since its inception loves absolute power. Golwalkar while
addressing the 1350 top level cadres of the RSS at its headquarters at
Nagpur in 1940 declared:“The RSS inspired by one flag, one leader
and one ideologyis lighting the flame of Hindutva in each and every
corner ofthis great land.”[MS Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan
(collected works of Golwalkar in Hindi), Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna,
Nagpur, nd, vol. I, p. 11.]This slogan of one flag, one leader and
one ideology was directly borrowed from the programmes of the Nazi and
Fascist Parties of Europe.

(6) RSS AGAINST FEDERALISM

On federalism Golwalkar sent the following message to the first session of the National Integration Council in 1961. It read:“Today’s
federal form of government not only gives birth butalso nourishes the
feelings of separatism, in a way refuses torecognize the fact of one
nation and destroys it. It must be completely uprooted, constitution
purified and unitary form of government be established.”[MS
Golwalkar, Shri Guruji Samagar Darshan (collected works of Golwalkar in
Hindi), Bhartiya Vichar Sadhna, Nagpur, nd, vol. III, p. 128.]These have not been some stray ideas of the RSS ideologue on the IndianFederalism.
The Bible of the RSS, Bunch of Thoughts, has an exclusive chapter
titled, ‘Wanted a unitary state’ in which Golwalkar presenting his
remedy to the federal set-upof India wrote:“The most important and
effective step will be to bury deep for good all talk of a federal
structure of our country’s Constitution, to sweepaway the existence of
all ‘autonomous’ or semi-autonomous ‘states’within the one state viz.,
Bharat and proclaim ‘One Country, OneState, One Legislature, One
Executive’ with no trace offragmentational[sic], regional, sectarian,
linguistic or other types of pridebeing given a scope for playing havoc
with our integrated harmony.Let the Constitution be re-examined and
re-drafted, so as to establishthis Unitary form of Government…”[MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 227.]

(7) RSS’ HATRED FOR MUSLIMS& CHRISTIANS

Organizations
like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) and
Bajrang Dal (BD), and other affiliates of the RSS after using Gujarat as
a laboratory for religious cleansing of minorities specially Christians
and Muslims for last so many years are spreading their tentacle
throughout India. The leaflets containing highly provocative statements
like, “‘Muslims are filth of the gutter, don’t let them enter in your
houses’,or ‘Wherever Christian priests have gone in the world, they loot
thepeople. Lies and deceit are their religion. The Christian priests
teachpeople to tell lies, to steal in the name of religion…They curse
Hindus,and decry the Hindu religion. Awaken Hindus and struggle
againstthese thieves who lie, who rob you of your rights, and bring
thesepeople to their senses and put their pride in place’, or ‘One
additionin the population of Christians or Muslims is not only the
addition ofanti-Hindu but anti-national person.’”[Leaflets circulated by the RSS offsprings like VHP, Hindu Jagaran Manch, and Bajrang Dal]

The
‘Holy’ book for the RSS cadres Bunch of Thoughts, has a long
chaptertitled as ‘Internal Threats’ in which Muslims and Christians are
described as threatnumber one and two respectively. This chapter opens
with the following statement:“It has been the tragic lesson of the
history of many a country in theworld that the hostile elements within
the country pose a far greatermenace to national security then
aggressors from outside.”[MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 177.]

While
treating Muslims as hostile element number one he goes on to elaborate,
“Even to this day there are so many who say, ‘now there is no
Muslimproblem at all. All those riotous elements who supported Pakistan
have gone away once for all. The remaining Muslims are devoted toour
country. After all, they have no other place to go and they arebound to
remain loyal’….It would be suicidal to delude ourselves intobelieving
that they have turned patriots overnight after the creation ofPakistan.
On the contrary, the Muslim menace has increased ahundredfold by the
creation of Pakistan which has become aspringboard for all their future
aggressive designs on our country.”[MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, pp. 177-78.]

He goes on to spit venom against common Muslims in the following words:“…within
the country there are so many Muslim pockets, i.e., so many ‘miniature
Pakistans’… The conclusion is that, in practically every place, there
are Muslims who are in constant touch with Pakistan over the
transmitter…”[MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 185.]

While
deliberating on the ‘Internal Threat’ number two, he says, “such is the
role of Christian gentlemen residing in our land today, out to demolish
not only the religious and social fabric of our life but also to
establish political domination in various pockets and if possible all
over the land.”[MS Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Sahitya Sindhu, Bangalore, 1996, p. 193.]

Golwalkar, finally, following into the footsteps of Hitler had the followingsolution of the minority problem in India:“From
this stand point, sanctioned by the experience of shrewd oldnations,
the foreign races in Hindusthan must either adopt the Hinduculture and
language, must learn to respect and hold in reverenceHindu religion,
must entertain no idea but those of the glorification ofthe Hindu race
and culture, i.e., of the Hindu nation and must losetheir separate
existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in thecountry, wholly
subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing,deserving no
privileges, far less any preferential treatment not evencitizen’s
rights. There is, at least should be, no other course for themto adopt.
We are an old nation: let us deal, as old nations ought toand do deal,
with the foreign races who have chosen to live in our country.”[MS Golwalkar, We Or Our Nationhood Defined, Bharat Publications, Nagpur, 1939, pp. 47-48.]

The
RSS hatred for Muslims and Christians does not mean that it accords
equality to other religious Indian minorities like Sikhs, Buddhist and
Jains. It does not accord the status of independent religions to
Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism and treats them as part of Hinduism.

(8) RSS AGAINST COMPOSITE INDIAN NATIONALISM

Importantly,
the RSS organ Organizer in its issue on the very eve of Independence,
dated 14 August, 1947, rejected the whole concept of a composite nation
(under the editorial title ‘Whither’): ”Let us no longer allow ourselves
to be influenced by false notions of nationhood. Much of the mental
confusion and the present and future troubles can be removed by the
ready recognition of the simple fact that in Hindusthan only the Hindus
form the nation and the national structure must be built on that safe
and sound foundation […] the nation itself must be built up of Hindus,
on Hindu traditions, culture, ideas and aspirations”.

Shamsul Islam is a former professor of Delhi University Email: notoinjustice@gmail.com